Jon Favreau showed up on behalf of Iron Man, an independent Marvel production Paramount will be distributing. Before coming out in person a pretaped video segment of Favreau appeared on the room's giant video screens of him introducing the movie's in-progress 'special effects' -- which turned out to be 1960s bargain basement Iron Man TV animation. It was the first of the director's two appearances on behalf of the film, the second coming later in the weekend at Marvel's own session.

Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford put in a surprise appearance -- via a live satellite remote from the undisclosed California location of their fourth (and still untitled) Indiana Jones film, due out next May. "This is all for you," Spielberg told the ecstatic crowd. In the 26 years since Indy's first appearance, "we've grown a lot wiser, and a lot richer," he added before introducing Jones' new sidekicks Ray Winstone, Shia LaBeouf ("I don't know what I'm doing here," the Transformers star admitted) and Karen Allen, returning as Marion Ravenwood.

Comic-Con draws big stars like Get Smart's Steve Carell to preview their films for fans.

J.J. Abrams, entrusted by Paramount to revive its currently dormant Star Trek franchise, returned to the stage to announce the casting of "our Spock:" Zachary Quinto, one of NBC's Heroes, will take on the pointy-eared role of Lieutenant Spock when the Enterprise soars once again in December 2008. Leonard Nimoy, the show's original half-Vulcan beamed in to pronounce Quinto's casting "logical," while Abrams said he hopes to talk Nimoy into "putting on the ears one more time" for a role in the new film.

The next morning Warner Bros. took over the big room to promote its 2008 slate. First up was Steve Carrel on behalf of his big screen version of the 1960's sitcom Get Smart ("I wanted a comedic Bourne Identity"), followed by a trailer for Roland Emmerich's 10,000 B.C. replete with CGI-rendered wooly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers.

Comicbook fans keep saying their medium of choice has finally earned the respect it deserves. Judging by Hollywood's appetite for big-screen adaptations, they've been right for a while, but that respect took another step forward in the trailer for WB's Kate Beckinsale Antarctica-based thriller Whiteout: an early title card announced the film was "based on the Eisner Award-winning graphic novel," putting that comics industry award (named for the famed creator of The Spirit) on the same promotional level as an Oscar or Golden Globe.

Beckinsale (famous for her dressed-in-leather Underworld role) played up her bad-girl image for all it was worth, delighting the crowd with quips like "I slept with the director way fewer times" on Whiteout than her other films; "I got bruised and beat up making this picture -- and I liked it;" "When I bent down on Underworld, everyone went 'oooh!' That never once happened on Whiteout [where her wardrobe consisted mainly of sub-zero parkas]."

Whiteout producer Joel Silver briefly plugged his upcoming live-action version of the 1960s classic anime TV series, Speed Racer, starring Emile Hirsch as Speed and Christina Ricci as girlfriend Trixie. "It's remarkable what they're doing," said Silver of the Wachowski brothers, the film's directors. "The races are unbelievable." (It might be worth pondering for a moment whether the final image in the cartoon series' opening titles -- a 90-degree dolly around a freeze-framed Speed -- was the direct inspiration for the brothers' famed 'bullet-time' effect in The Matrix.)

300 director Zack Snyder with his wife, producer Deborah Snyder, shared details on the highly anticipated Watchmen feature.

Fans of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' legendary graphic novel Watchmen -- the story of a superhero team stalked by an assassin -- were treated to news of the long-anticipated film version's cast, courtesy of director Zack Snyder (300): Billy Crudup, assisted by mocap and CGI will play "Doctor Manhattan" ("He needed to be more than a man," Snyder told the crowd. "He needed to glow and be 200 feet tall. The tests are looking pretty cool."). Patrick Wilson is the conflicted, Batman-ish "Night Owl," Jeffrey Dean Morgan the in-your-face, cigar-chomping "Comedian," Malin Akerman the gorgeous "Silk Spectre," and in what may prove to be a particularly inspired choice, Jackie Earle Haley as the obsessed vigilante "Rorschach."

Snyder said he hopes Moore -- who was so disgusted with Hollywood's version of his V for Vendetta that he took his name off the picture -- will ultimately, "watch it some rainy afternoon in England and say 'they didn't f___ it up too much.'" With Watchmen not due in theaters until 2009, fans had to content themselves with a poster for the film drawn by Gibbons in the style of his comics' covers.

For reasons as yet unexplained, 20th Century Fox bailed on its Friday morning show and tell, leaving Hall H's 6,000 seats free to fill up for New Line's presentation, beginning with Michael Davis touting his meta-shoot 'em up, Shoot 'Em Up, starring Clive Owen as the leather-jacketed 'Mr. Smith.' In near tongue-in-cheek manner, the taciturn Owen mows down infinite numbers of villain Paul Giamatti's similarly-dressed henchmen. "I wasn't ready for this," said Owen of the pumped-up crowd. "The fans are so excited it's a little jarring."

Chris Weitz appeared onscreen in a pre-recorded video from London with clips and making-of footage from The Golden Compass, New Line's offering to the Potter/Narnia audience. Judging from the extremely rich production design, the slew of shape-shifting talking animals and high-powered cast (led by Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig) the studio is hoping to repeat their Lord of the Rings success.